{"id":24034,"date":"2023-02-25T09:45:40","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T14:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=24034"},"modified":"2023-02-25T09:45:55","modified_gmt":"2023-02-25T14:45:55","slug":"20-things-pastors-should-not-love-too-much-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/20-things-pastors-should-not-love-too-much-3\/","title":{"rendered":"20 things pastors should not love too much"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDo not be excessively righteous or overly wise\u201d (Ecclesiastes 7:16).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most of us would not include those\u00a0excesses\u00a0in a list of which\u00a0to be wary.\u00a0 But for most, I imagine\u00a0the list might look more like this\u2026<\/p>\n

One.\u00a0 We should not be in love with the sound of our own voice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The preacher who delights too much with his own voice will outtalk everyone in the room and drone on far longer in sermons than is wise.\u00a0 Better we learn to tame that critter, then put him to use in the service of the Lord.<\/p>\n

Two. We should beware of loving those extra desserts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

More and more these days, the overweight preacher is the norm.\u00a0 Sometimes the culprit is that he announced from the pulpit his favorite dessert to be lemon icebox pie or banana pudding, and now well-meaning church members keep him supplied.\u00a0 Sometimes, it\u2019s the church dinners where ladies bring a dozen or more home-made desserts that would tempt a saint.<\/p>\n

Three.\u00a0 The preacher who loves golf too much may be asking for trouble.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Golf can be a great servant but is a poor master.\u00a0 A great diversion but a poor vocation. It can fill a great need when kept in its place, but can wreck lives and careers when allowed to expand uncontrolled.<\/p>\n

Four.\u00a0 The pastor who specializes in taking people on trips to the Holy Land could be endangering his ministry.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

He may be falling prey to the financial enticements such a sideline can offer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I suggest that pastors who take groups on Holy Land trips should file annual reports with their church\u2019s finance committee accounting for the income and outgo. When a pastor-host clears perhaps several hundred dollars per person, a good-sized tour-group can net him ten or twenty thousand dollars.\u00a0\u00a0Even if his church salary exceeds that several times over, this amount can make a great difference in his lifestyle.<\/p>\n

I suspect that pastors who constantly take Holy Land tours never mention to their people that they are being paid for it. And yet, in most cases they are doing this on company time.<\/p>\n

Five.\u00a0 No wise pastor will love flattery too much.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Flattery is like perfume, we\u2019re told. It smells good but will make you sick if you swallow it. I\u2019ve known too many preachers who swallow all the flattery they can find, then\u00a0look around for more.\u00a0 Not wise.<\/p>\n

Six.\u00a0 Mission trips.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Effective pastors may take their people on the occasional mission trip, but this too can be a diversion from his leadership of the local flock if overdone.\u00a0 Pastors who love to travel should be careful here. (Please note I\u2019m not suggesting churches emphasize missions less; only that the pastor should keep his priorities on leading his flock back at home.)<\/p>\n

Seven.\u00a0 Extra money.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>The pastor who loves his people and is devoted to becoming the best shepherd possible will also be careful about projects that bring in outside income for himself.\u00a0 The exception would be if he is bi-vocational.<\/p>\n

A bi-vocational pastor will do whatever he needs to in order to provide for his family.\u00a0 However, we have seen pastors with full incomes begin to dabble in sideline enterprises that quickly absorbed a great deal of their time and diverted their energies and attention from ministry.<\/p>\n

Eight. To be an effective minister to his own people, a wise pastor will not hold more than two or three outside revivals (conferences, retreats, etc) a year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If a pastor feels his calling is to evangelism, let him resign the church and follow the calling. But when he takes the church\u2019s salary and then spends a great portion of his time preaching in other churches\u2013all of which pay him hefty honoraria\u2013he is mistreating the congregation. The church finance committee may ask him to report the income he receives from all these outside meetings.<\/p>\n

Nine.\u00a0 The pastor should not be in love with degrees on his wall or titles\u00a0before his name.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The love for such has caused unworthy schools to rise up and award hasty degrees for little effort and a lot of money.\u00a0 In the days of our Lord, it was greetings in the marketplace which the religious leaders loved.\u00a0 These days, it\u2019s Doctor, Bishop, Senior Pastor, and the like.\u00a0 Let us be careful here.<\/p>\n

Ten.\u00a0 A wise pastor will not love his study more than he should.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, most pastors need to spend more time in the study with the open Bible than they do. But here and there, we find ministers who would rather study than minister, rather exegete Romans than call on the elderly at the nursing home, and prefer their commentaries and study of the original languages than sitting down with the children to tell them of Jesus.<\/p>\n

Eleven.\u00a0 A pastor should not overly love his denomination.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Denominations are simply assemblages of churches agreeing on certain doctrines or ways of doing ministry.\u00a0 They are not found in Holy Writ as such, and should never be equated with orthodoxy or made the standard of anything.\u00a0 The pastor who lives for the denomination may be putting a bureaucracy in place of the Lord.<\/p>\n

Twelve.\u00a0 The pastor should not love privacy too much.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m all in favor of privacy, of solitude so a person can be quiet, meditate, or be creative.\u00a0 But the danger is in over-loving our privacy.\u00a0 My experience is that the preacher who becomes almost paranoid in protecting his privacy may be trying to hide some secret sin.\u00a0 Best to open the doors and love people and have nothing to hide. It\u2019s a wonderful feeling.<\/p>\n

Thirteen. A friend suggests the pastor should not be fixated on his motorcycle.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have one, don\u2019t want one, and don\u2019t really understand the love affair some people have with these two-legged vehicles which scare the daylights out of me on the interstate by whizzing by at 80 or 90 mph.\u00a0 But, like anything else, I suppose, they have their place.\u00a0 But they can be overly loved and become an idol.<\/p>\n

Fourteen. The pastor should beware of loving sleep too much, said several friends.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The book of Proverbs has a lot to say about this, you sluggard.\u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Fifteen.\u00a0 The pastor should be careful of loving power too much.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The minister is not about power over people.\u00a0 We are servants.<\/p>\n

Sixteen.\u00a0 The pastor should take care not to love his position too much<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

He will be leaving that church sooner or later, and should be careful to leave it in better shape than when he found it.<\/p>\n

Seventeen.\u00a0 The pastor who loves the internet–his laptop, the smart phone, etc.– too much may be asking for trouble.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eighteen.\u00a0 The pastor should be careful about loving beautiful women (and they\u2019re all beautiful!) too much.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nineteen.\u00a0 The pastor who loves to preach on hell is seriously twisted and has no place in the ministry.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recently, on a country music station that plays ancient recordings, I noticed the words as Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton sang, “Daddy was an old-time preacher man.”\u00a0 What got me was the line, “He preached hell so hurt you could feel the burn” (or something like that; not sure of the exact words).\u00a0 Let the preacher major on grace and not punishment.<\/p>\n

I do not want to sit under a pastor who delights in preaching on hellfire!<\/p>\n

Twenty.\u00a0 The pastor should not love his sports team too much.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve chided a few friends who have adorned their office walls with memoribilia for their teams.\u00a0 “What if you have a fan of (the other team)?” I ask them.\u00a0 And they laugh it off, as though that’s not going to happen.<\/p>\n

You’ll think of others.\u00a0 Love Jesus. Love His church, His people, and serving Him.<\/p>\n

An unemployed pastor said to me, “Joe, I need to preach!\u00a0 Preaching is my passion.”\u00a0 I said, “There is the problem, my friend. Your passion should be Jesus.”\u00a0 Give him credit.\u00a0 He said, “Oh my. Thank you for that wake-up call.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDo not be excessively righteous or overly wise\u201d (Ecclesiastes 7:16). Most of us would not include those\u00a0excesses\u00a0in a list of which\u00a0to be wary.\u00a0 But for most, I imagine\u00a0the list might look more like this\u2026 One.\u00a0 We should not be in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24034"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24062,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24034\/revisions\/24062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}